New Model of Democracy Passes First Test

Thousands of people have participated in the first MiVote, a new democratic platform that gives the power back to the people via direct, informed votes on individual issues.

MiVote launched its world-leading democratic model in February with a test vote asking Australians how they want to participate in the country’s decision-making process. Of the four options presented, 89% of voters supported a direct democracy system.

Founder Adam Jacoby said that while a majority vote in support of direct democracy on a direct democracy platform is hardly surprising, it does reinforce the results of Roy Morgan polling that found more than 3/4 of Australians were likely to use an online voting platform to participate in policy decisions.

Starting 7 March this year, MiVote will roll out a new policy-based vote every two weeks.

“Running a policy vote every fortnight between now and the election means that MiVote will be the only group who will be able to present a platform that comes directly from the will of the people.” Jacoby explains. “Because MiVote are the only ones that ask the people what they want, instead of telling them how to think based on a party ideology.”

MiVote will register as a political party before the next federal election and run candidates for the Senate. They will also release an app version on the app store and google play in the coming months.

“The first vote was an intentionally light issue,” Jacoby explained. “While the model that underpins MiVote has been five years in the making, the blockchain-based voting platform has been developed over the last few months. Vote 1 was an opportunity for people to get a feel for MiVote and for us to test its performance.”

The other options in the vote were; Referendum (66%) Electoral Voting (55%) and Plebiscite (25%). Thousands of people from around the world visited vote.mivote.org.au, although only those with an Australian mobile number could log in to cast a vote – one of MiVote’s security features.

“This is very real.” Jacoby said. “We will continue to iterate between now and the election to ensure MiVote is robust, secure and genuinely delivers true democracy – enacting the informed will of the people.”

MiVote members are presented with information packets outlining different approaches to a given issue through the app, and then asked to support as many or few of those approaches as they can live with. The approach with a majority vote above 60% forms MiVote’s position on that issue.

MiVote will register as a political party before the next federal election and run candidates for the Senate. MiVote Senators are bound by the movement’s constitution to represent the majority position, voted by MiVote members through the platform, in parliament.

MiVote has received international media attention including Guardian and Fast Company, read more in the news section.